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Questions swapping system disks asap.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=7337		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  vx2 [ Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Questions swapping system disks asap.
First of all, I want to thank you for all the posters and tutorials on this forum and site that have played a giant part in my decision to purchase an EX495.

Now I have read a good few handful of reviews that the include seagate 1.5tb are defective or at least prone to failing within months of operation. Can anyone confirm this? Because if this is the case I am planning on the get go to change the system disk to a WD or something else. How do i go about this replacing the system disk (where the WHS and HP Software is)?

Is it as easy as booting the recovery CD? Or what? Any semi-detailed guide would help.

Of course this is all assuming that the included seagate drive does suck.

Thank you in advance. :encore:
Author:  Comp1962 [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Questions swapping system disks asap.
Hi vx2 welcome to the forums!

While I stopped using Seagate Drives almost a year ago and switched to Western Digital and more recently I purchased some a couple Hitachi 2 TB drives along with a 2 TB WD Drive.

The WD Green Drives which have been reported to work well in the MSS's are the ones with EADS in the Model Number. The other WD Green Drives have been reported to have issues in the server, not that they are bad but they just cause issues. So even some WD Drives are not a perfect solution.

While its a fact of life, all hard drives will die at some point. They are mechanical and over time they get worn out, its just a matter of when. My last Seagate drive died within 3 months and that particular model was plagued with issues just too bad I was not aware of the issues or I would of avoided the drive.

As for changing the system drive out.....I would check your model number out first to see if it requires a firmware update and to see if others experienced failures with that particular drive.

The recovery process for the EX49x is not as simple as it was with the EX47x and EX48x models and people have reported issues with performing a server recovery using HP's process. All is not lost tho because many good people have worked on finding a solution to this problem and there are posts about it here on this site and 2 come to mind.

Before I continue I recommend you read through this thread to better understand what issues you may encounter with the EX49x recovery process and some people have posted some solutions in there as well. Click on the Link below for more information:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6307

The first method is to clone the actual System Drive but in doing so you will have to edit a few things but this is by far the best and more simpler approach to changing out your system drive so click on the link below to information on how to Clone your System Drive;

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/01 ... tem-drive/

The next process is a little more envolved but you can read about it in the link below:

http://mediasmartpodcast.blogspot.com/2 ... sb_09.html

I hope I have provided you with enough information to review to help you better understand the issues you may encouter with changing out the system drive. Once you pick one of the options to do so it will be good practice for you should you need to change the System Drive in the future. I also hope that you are able to determine if your Seagate drive is one with a problem or not and which WD Green Drive you should purchase.

If you should need additional help or information please do not hesitate to ask again and before you begin if you do not have backups of your users and client backups there is a FREE Add-In available on this site developed by Alex (The Site Owner) called BDBB that will allow you to backup your User Information and Client Backups. Its an outstanding program and I recommend it to everyone especially ones who are about to perform a Server Recovery be it just a Server Recovery or a Server Factory Recovery as it will allow you to restore your Users and Client Backups should the need arise. I use it and have restored my Users and Client Backups and it worked perfectly.

Good Luck with changing your system drive! Let us know how you make out.
Author:  vx2 [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Questions swapping system disks asap.
Wow. A big thank you Comp1962!

That was ALL the information i needed. I'll check the serials on the drive when it arrives but with all the loud reviews about the drive failing within months, getting ready to switch from the start to avoid losing system settings seems like a good idea.

Again, just awesome. Thank you! :)
Author:  matthi [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 2:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Questions swapping system disks asap.
Hi vx2,

the first thing I did when I got my EX490 4 days ago, was swapping out the Seagate anyway. Never had any serious issues with Seagate, but I'm having a WD RE2 (Enterprise class) drive lying around and I prefer that one as a system drive. It is made for 24x7 operation so if anything should go wrong, I suspect the WD is less to be the failure then the Seagate could be.

As Comp1962 stated, the system restore/factory reset is not as straight-forward as it should be. Mine worked from a XP machine. My own Windows 7 was a no-gogo. So be sure to read through the posts about this, and you'll be fine.

Rgrds,
matthi
Author:  Comp1962 [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Questions swapping system disks asap.
vx2 wrote:
Wow. A big thank you Comp1962!

That was ALL the information i needed. I'll check the serials on the drive when it arrives but with all the loud reviews about the drive failing within months, getting ready to switch from the start to avoid losing system settings seems like a good idea.

Again, just awesome. Thank you! :)


Your welcome!

Hey when you get the new drive and check out the model number and have checked the Seagate Model number out let me know what you found out and what you decided to do. Its always good to get a follow up to know how well your doing.

In future do not hesitate to ask questions and always take the conservative approach to running your server and it will treat you well and you will have no regrets. Sometimes you have to say nice words to it too......
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